frisbee my love

we spent this weekend in shanghai for a frisbee tournament.  sadly, we left the camera at home... it would have been awesome to capture a few moments.  our flight and hotel package was the best deal we could have imagined.  essentially the package cost the same amount as the flight would have cost on its own.  the hotel included in the package wasn't your run-down motel 6 either.  we're talking amazing, awesome, beautiful, huge breakfast buffet, hot tub and pool, mini spa changing rooms, etc.  not bad for basically free!  

the tournament was great too.  it's been raining a LOT in hong kong, so our practice fields have been mudpits (with a little bit of sewer stench), so it was a great change of pace to play on actual grass - cushy, a little slick with rain, and perfect for layouts!  

our team did alright in the end.  i think we got 5th?  we went 1-3 the first day (bummer), and 2-1 the second day (much better).  both grant and i felt ok about our play, but not great.  some games were really good for me, some really awful.  games where i could catch anything, and games where i dropped everything.  my favorite part was  our "honey score."  grant had the disc near the right side of the field, and i was wide open in the left corner of the endzone.  he totally faked out his defender for a beautiful backhand pass across the field to me.  :-D  yay!

the 2nd day was a lot more relaxed, fun, and silly.  lots of vipers, our captain finally got pantsed (after bragging about being "impregnable"), and some fun spirited teams to play.  between the semifinals and the finals, they held a women's exhibition game where any women from all the teams got together and played basically a pickup game of women only.  awesome!!  i'd love to play a bit more ladies' ultimate.

i love frisbee.

now we're getting ready for a mission trip to cambodia with our youth!  lots to do this week... 

pictures from joy and chris's visit

As promised, the photos from joy and chris's visit

I love dim sum!!

waiting for the ferry

looking cute at church

on our hike

katie, joy, chris and me.  we don't want to touch each other because it's SOOO hot!

at the temple street night market

the sullivans come to visit!

for those of you following along with our blog (and i'm not sure how many of you there are - leave a comment!), you may remember my dear friend joy from zionsville?
joy and i were interns together in 06-07 at zionsville pres. church, and we were, self-admittedly, pretty much each other's friend in town. (though we had a few other contacts, don't worry, we weren't that big of dorks!)

while joy and i were being great friends, we made our fiances tag along and become friends as well on the weekends. and oh how well it worked. a great scheme of ours, i believe.

well, these two lovely people - joy and chris- got married almost a year ago (yay congrats!), and we got married a month later and left for the other side of the world. they promised a visit out to us, and it actually was able to happen!

they got here last friday and stayed for a week, just leaving this morning. i'll put up pictures from our exploits in HK later (when i get the photos uploaded), but it was an awesome week of playing cards, going to the beach, seeing the tourist sights, and just being able to live life together for a week.

friends are a blessing from God. i'm thoroughly convinced of it, and this week was an amazing reminder of it. i remember a sermon that pastor glenn gave last year at zpc about friends. he talked about how God grants us 2 kinds of good friends: friends of the road and friends of the heart. friends of the road are those people that come into our life for a short time and are so incredibly important during that phase in our life: the friend from summer camp, the classmates who helped you through that tough course, or even a great acquaintance that comes into our life at one time. these people are incredibly valuable and important to us, if only for a season. and God uses them to touch our life in that moment. but then there are friends of the heart who last through all seasons of life. these are friends who we may grow apart in interests or career, but who remain "soul friends." thank God for those people as well!

we will rock you

Last night, Grant and I went to see We Will Rock You - the musical based on Queen's music. It was everything you could want in a musical: recognizable songs to sing along with, sensory overload in the scenery, costumes, dance numbers, clapping along with the actors during "We will rock you," singing to "We are the Champions," etc. Definitely a blast. We went with two of our frisbee friends, Stu and Michele, so that was good times as well.

Probably the best part was our seats. We bought the cheap tickets - 2nd floor gallery on the side, row L or something... We were moved to the lower floor, row S! Our ticket value went from HK350 to HK700 simply by showing the usher our ticket and being directed to the upgrade booth. :-D

The libretto of the musical was a lot of fun because there were SO many pop culture references - mostly mocking the boy bands, the girl bands, the pop stars, etc. Also, random lyrics from well-known songs thrown in: quotes from Queen (obviously), the Beatles, and more. They even did some tailored HK references a few times to Cantopop stars and places in HK. Added value for the audience.

If the show is ever anywhere near you, go see it!